Alejandro Díaz Sántiz, a prisoner held in the no. 5 prison of San Cristóbal de Las Casas who is also in solidarity with the Voz del Amate and an adherent to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), has published a communique directed at all the “comrade mothers and fathers of the disappeared students of Ayotzinapa and Iguala, Guerrero. By means of this space I wish to send you a greeting and a strong embrace to each of you; I hope that the blessings of God will always illuminate each of your activities. I greatly lament the events of 26 September. In light of these lamentable acts of the bad governments, [we see that] they seek ways to silence the people who defend the people: some are imprisoned, while others are killed or disappeared altogether. With pain in my heart I express my solidarity with all of you. I request of God that they appear alive, for they were taken alive, and we want them alive once again. Despite the hundreds of kilometers that divide us, I feel very close to you all, knowing that you will never tire of telling the truth.”

Beyond this, he continued discussing the situation “of the bad governments” which are “huge assassins and kidnappers, but they never will enter prison, because they protect one another. On the other hand, a Tsotsil indigenous man can be deprived of his liberty for several years, as in my own case. I have been incarcerated for 15 years and 7 months for having committed no crime at all.”

Lastly, he called on the parents of the disappeared to continue struggling, as well as for “all the independent organizations of the world to join the demand of return home with life of each and all of our disappeared brothers.”

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center for Human Rights (Frayba) denounced on 17 December in an Urgent Action that 17 Tojolabal families that sympathize with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) who had taken a piece of land in the Las Margaritas municipality have been attacked and currently face threats of displacement on the part of members of the Historical Agricultural and Worker Independent Center (CIOAC-H).

The document explains that “at approximately 6am, 50 members of CIOAC-H entered the Primero de Agosto community from the Miguel Hidalgo ejido, carrying sticks, machetes, and even firearms.”

It adds that “the situation of violence is critical due to the fact that CIOAC-H members have been attacking Zapatista-sympathizing families, setting free their domesticated animals, and destroying their homes.”

For this reason, Frayba urgently demands that the state governemnt immediately act to protect the lives and physical safety of the EZLN sympatherizers in the Primero de Agosto community, prevent the forcible displacement of these same families, thus respecting and guaranteeing the rights stipulated in the international declarations and conventions having to do with indigenous autonomy and self-determination, and punish the CIOAC-H members who have been engaged in destruction and assault against the Primero de Agosto community.

On 4 December 2014, 3 years were commemorated since the attacks in the Banavil community, Tenejapa municipality, Chiapas, as prosecuted by members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). In a press-conference, the Zapatista-sympathizing families mentioned the attack with firearms which led to the displacement of 13 persons “who have lost everything and are prevented with death-threats from returning.” The attack caused the death of Pedro Méndez López, while six others were injured, and Alonso López Luna forcibly disappeared. Furthermore, two arbitrary arrests were carried out of Lorenzo López Girón, son of the disappeared who was injured by gunfire and then accused of assault and battery, as well as Francisco Santiz López, Zapatista support base (BAEZLN), who was actually located elsewhere during the attack. Subsequently, both were released, with Francisco’s case won thanks to the work of a special campaign involving international-solidarity actions.

The press-bulletin indicates that “due to these grave human-rights violations, we continue to demand justice and punishment of those responsible for the attacks. It is necessary to clarify the truth regarding the forcible disappearance of Mr. Alonso López Luna, and that he be returned to us with life. Furthermore, we demand compensation for the damages incurred, owing to the plundering of our possessions and lands in the community; an expeditious return to the homes for the displaced, who now live in vulnerable situations in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, lacking access to healthcare and housing, and without options for work under dignified conditions.”

Following the press-conference, representatives of the Simojovel parish celebrated a ceremony and prayer with the displaced families to express their support and alleviate their pain. This case of the displaced families from Banavil has been included within the Campaign Faces of Looting, “Our Lands, Our Rights. No to Forcible Displacement.”

On 28 November, the team of the Workshop for Communal Development (TADECO) was threatened by a note that was left in the morning on the automobile belonging to director Javier Monroy Hernández outside his home in Chilpancingo, Guerrero. TADECO detailed that the anonymous message, written on carton using blue ink, says the following: “Fucking little guerrilla of Marxist-Leninist orientation… my balls. FJ. MONROY HDZES… OF THE EZLN. FOR EACH COMRADE MARINE, SOLDIER, POLICE WHO FALLS, YOUR LIFE WILL BE CUT SHORT BY A YEAR. REGARDS, DEFENDERS OF THE COUNTRY.” The message on the back carries a type of signature with different Mexican and international security agencies, including some that do not even exist: “ANTI-TERRORIST AND ANTI-SUBVERSION INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, CISEN, SEDENA, SEMAR, AND STATE DEPT OF NSA. ISRAEL, ITALY, GERMANY, AND FRANCE. MOSSAD, POLICE, SURETEE. POL NAC. SPAIN. CARABINIERIS.” The message concludes: “WE ARE WATCHING YOU… together with the female bigot and “Comandanta Isabel.” E.A…”

The organization could not tell if this was a joke, but it is not the first time that its member receive threats of this sort, as accompanied by actions and slanderous charges against the activists. Beyond this, it stresses the type of support it has provided to the parents and students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos rural normal school of Ayotzinapa, and the accompaniment it has given to the victims of social violence from the Committee of Relatives and Friends of Kidnapped, Disappeared, and Murdered in Guerrero for seven years. TADECO recalls that in 2009 there was a similar campaign of death-threats and harassment communicated by telephone that was resolved with the support of other organizations, in light of the incompetence of the State Attorney General’s Office.

March in San Cristóbal de las Casas by the National Brigade for the disappeared of Ayotzinapa @ SIPAZ

On 12 November, in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, relatives of the disappeared students and the student committee reported on the activities of the National Brigade regarding the presentation with life of the 43 disappeared normalist students from Ayotzinapa.

The brigade was organized into three branches, one towards the north (passing through the states of Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, Jalisco, and Michoacán); one toward the south (visiting the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Morelos, and Tlaxcala), and another state brigade in Guerrero, which visited the municipalities of Tlapa, San Luis Acatlán, Ayutla, Tecoanapa, Zihuatanejo, Atoyac, and Acapulco. The three caravans met in Mexico City on 20 November to conclude their work with a mass-march and rally in the Zócalo. The objective of the Brigade was to collect direct information regarding the acts of 26 and 27 September, the investigative process, and the search for the 43 disappeared students, beyond making proposals for the elaboration of a program for struggle and action that would transform the causes led to the events seen in Iguala.

The “Daniel Solís Gallardo” Brigade arrived to Chiapas on 14 November, being named for one of the normalist students who was killed on 26 September, and it led a march through the streets of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, to the applause of onlookers. “Alive they took them; alive we want them,” “Ayotzinapa, hold on; Chiapas is rising” together with other slogans were heard until the march reached the Cathedral Plaza.

At the rally, two women spoke, being the mothers of two of the disappeared. They said that they no longer have fear, and that they are prepared to give their lives to find their sons, because though the government says they are dead, they believe in their hearts that they are still alive.

On 15 November, the members of the Brigade visited the Zapatista caracol of Oventik, where they met with the high command of the Revolutionary Clandestine Indigenous Committee of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), and the EZLN expressed its sympathy for the pain, rage, and powerlessness of the parents who still have yet to find their sons.

The activities in San Cristóbal de Las Casas concluded with a press-conference during which Brigade members noted that the EZLN had suggested that they “visit those who like us have suffered forcible disappearances or extrajudicial executions–who are not few in number in this country–because it is only they who will understand us and accompany us in our pain and struggle. It is they with whom we can articulate a movement, a larger and more powerful nucleus with all the social organizations that would like to join,” following their return through Oaxaca.

On 24 October, the “Heart of memory, sown on our lands” event was held in the Masojá Shucjá community, Tila municipality, in the northern zone of Chiapas, to remember the victims of execution, forcible disappearance, and forced displacement in this region between the years 1995 and 1999. Those present demanded justice in these cases and expressed their solidarity with the families of the normalist students of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center for Human Rights, present at this event, stressed that “in the zone below Tila, [the paramilitary group] Paz y Justicia committed at least 37 forcible disappearances, 85 executions, and displaced more than 4500 persons, who also suffered harassment, intimidation, destruction of property, torture, sexual abuse, and arbitrary arrests, among other human-rights violations […]. Lamentably, these great human-right violations have continued to enjoy impunity, given that the material and intellectual authors have not been truly investigated or sanctioned in accordance with their involvement in these crimes against humanity. This situation has been broadly denounced, and it has been taken to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. There have been eight cases that reflect the atrocities experienced in the region. There are 122 cases documented by this Center of Human Rights in the northern zone. They are examples of the counter-insurgent strategy that has been implemented by the federal and state authorities, following the Plan for the Chiapas Campaign […]. Neither forgiveness nor forgetting.”

Mobilization “A light for Ayotzinapa” in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Photo@SIPAZ

On 22 October, the protest-day “A light for Ayotzinapa” was held in dozens of cities in Mexico and abroad. In Mexico City itself, 50,000 participated in the march, according to city authorities. In Iguala, protestors marched the same route taken by the normalist students before they were attacked by police. In Chiapas, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) carried out a prayer and protest. Furthermore, thousands of citizens, including students and teachers, participated in the mobilizations in several cities of the state. Students from different educational centers throughout the world joined the action, manifesting themselves in their countries for the disappearances of the 43 students.

On 23 October, Navy units arrested José Luis Abarca, former mayor of Iguala, and his wife Maria de Los Ángeles Pineda Villa, who have been indicated by the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) as those who ordered the disappearance of the 43 students on 26 September. Following their arrest, they were required to declare themselves before the Specialized Subprosecutorial Office for Investigations into Organized Crime (SEIDO). The arrest was executed by the Navy with support from the PGR in a hotel in the capital of Veracruz state.

Also on 23 October, following weeks of calls to this end from all standpoints, Ángel Aguirre Rivero, governor of Guerrero, publicly announced his resignation before the state congress over the Iguala case. He began the announcement by summarizing the advances his administration had made in the Iguala case, though he did not provide any information regarding the actual whereabouts of the disappeared. In fact, the administration of Ángel Aguirre Rivero began with the murder of two other normalist students from Ayotzinapa: Gabriel Echeverría de Jesús and Jorge Alexis Herrera Pino were shot dead by federal and ministerial police on the Sol Highway on 12 December as they were clearing a blockade. This case continues in impunity.

The same day, nine new mass-gravesites were located in the La Parota zone near Iguala by communards who are members of the Union of Peoples and Organizations from Guerrero State (UPOEG). They referred their findings to the federal police for investigation.

In other news, the European Parliament on 23 October approved a resolution condemning the events in Iguala that calls for the European Union (EU) to restrengthen its cooperation with Mexico in terms of human rights. The resolution demands the continuation of investigations “until the students [are found to be] safe,” lamenting the “apparent infiltration of organized crime in local police and administrative organizations.” The resolution presented the government of Enrique Peña Nieto as a victim of organized crime, and not as a principally responsible party in the acts. In this sense, the European Green Party and the Unified European Left/Nordic Greens decided to distance themselves from this declaration and instead released their own proposal for resolution. Both groups support the intervention in Mexico of the International Criminal Court (ICC) located in the Hague, as well as the suspension of the bilateral Global Mexico-EU accord, security agreements, and the arms trade with Mexico. This alternative resolution interprets the events of Ayotzinapa as a spiral of violence that originates in years of impunity and broken promises by Mexican authorities.